US dollar bullish bets continued to rise totaling $34.56 billion from $33.60 billion against the major currencies during the one week period, according to the report of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) covering data up to April 16 and released on Friday April 19. The dollar sentiment improvement persisted despite a dovish Federal Reserve’s March meeting minutes indicating the central bank is in wait and see mode with regards to resuming interest rate hikes in 2019, while core consumer price index declined to a 13-month low of 2% in March, from 2.1% in February.
CFTC Sentiment vs Exchange Rate
| April 16 2019 | Bias | Ex RateTrend | Position $ mln | Weekly Change |
| CAD | bearish | neutral | -3682 | -441 |
| AUD | bearish | negative | -3363 | 513 |
| EUR | bearish | negative | -13826 | 565 |
| GBP | bearish | negative | 75 | 607 |
| CHF | bearish | negative | -4043 | -524 |
| JPY | bearish | positive | -9721 | -1676 |
| Total | -34559 |